As the number of users and application scenarios of wireless communication increases, there will be an increasing demand on the supporting wireless communication networks (such as cellular networks) to accommodate a growing number of devices and to be able to simultaneously and satisfactorily serve these devices.
The capacity of an access point (e.g. an macro-eNodeB, a femto-eNodeB, a pico-eNodeB, etc. of a cellular network that operated according to the 3GPP UMTS LTE—Third Generation Partnership Program Universal Mobile Telecommunication Standard Long Term Evolution—standard) of a supporting wireless communication network in terms of the number of devices it can accommodate, is typically limited by the access point hardware (e.g. processing power, memory, etc.). Thus, in order to accommodate a growing number of devices, one may increase the number of access points and/or update the existing access point hardware. Such solutions may be cumbersome in terms of cost, implementation and physical deployment. Furthermore, there may be a desire to even further increase the number of devices that can be supported also after such solutions have been implemented.
Therefore, there is a need for alternative methods and devices that enable an increase in the number of devices that may be accommodated by an access point of a wireless communication network.